by If you’re one of the valiant ones who’ve managed to find this fledgling site, thanks for your loyalty. You’ve proven yourself a worthy source of crowdsourcing! As many of you know, I’ve been working on a book about the future of values. It’s getting pretty close to the finish line. I’m working with the good folks at No Limits Publishing on the title. (BTW, they are not responsible for this crowdsourcing idea). I just thought it would be fun to hear what you think of the working title we have: Consumer Shift: How Values Changes Are Reshaping the Emerging Consumer Landscape.
Be honest, have fun, and be gentle….please. I’m hoping that at least some of you have heard my basic talk on this at some point over the years, as this book basically builds on it. Here is a brief summary of the book I prepared a while back:
The book explores changes in the consumer landscape over the next decade. The premise is that business professionals, or anyone interacting with consumers, are increasingly frustrated about no longer understanding where their consumers are coming from–or where they are going. The old approaches to consumer understanding are not working.
The book provides a conceptual model for making sense of how consumers are changing along two primary dimensions: inner dimension changes being driven by predictable long-term shifts in consumer values, and outer dimension changes are the accompanying shifts fit into the emerging landscape (e.g., society, technology, economy, etc.). This new dimensions model provides a framework for understanding how consumers are changing, with specific values shifts identified and the relevant external trends explained.
These inner and outer dimension changes are forecast to come together into seven clusters of consumer need states. These need states in turn are brought to life in the form of a representative future personas. Finally, a customization kit is provided for readers–whether in business, government, non-profits, or education–and their organizations to do it themselves. Andy Hines
Regarding the subtitle: “How Values Changes Are Reshaping the Emerging Consumer Landscape.” The two plurals in a row — “Values Changes” — don’t roll off the tongue. Try: “Consumer Shift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping…”
Also, it could be tightened up by cutting Emerging. (“Reshaping” already hints at the forward-looking nature of the book.)
In the spirit of brainstorming and helpfulness, here are some other ideas to play around with:
“Consumer Shift: How Customer Values Will Change Over the Next Decade”
“Consumer Shift: How to Understand the Changing Consumer Landscape”
“Consumer Shift: The Internal and External Forces Transforming the Consumer Landscape”
“Consumer Shift: What Customers Will Value in the Decade Ahead”
“Consumer Shift: How Values Are Transforming Customer Relationships”
“Consumer Shift: How to Make Sense of Changing Customer Values”
Dang, not bad, not bad at all. Really good in fact. Totally agree on the “emerging.” Nice suggestions as well. Really appreciate the input! The experiment is already a success.
I’m coming up short on specific titles, but what was most interesting about the description was the notion of the lost consumer. We have lost touch with what people value. I am no longer in a consumer business, but an exploration of that topic would grab my attention. Perhaps: “Losing the consumer: How Value Changes are…”
It may be necessary for you to use Consumer in the title, but I do hate that companies reduce my existence into being a consumer instead of a person. And we have this growing portion of the population that is trying to generally consume less of everything (energy, land, packaging, food, …). “What we value” vs. “What consumers value”. The former reaches me. The latter reaches the marketing team. Again, I don’t have the title. Just a reaction.
hey tom, nice to hear from you. You are do dead on with this. I have a lot of problem with using “consumer” conceptually, because the trend is away from that whole idea. I talk about “anti-sumers” in the book. Clunky, but it gets at your point that people don’t want to be thought of in terms of what they purchase!
Hi Andy,
I’m a marketing freak, so I would call it “THE V SHIFT: How values are reshaping consumer behavior”. Maybe you don’t like it at all, but I’m entitled to the crowdsourcing freedom of expression! 🙂
Hope all is well. I’ll definitely get my copy!
Kiko Suarez
It does grab you — I like it to. Will put it into the “hopper.” thanks!
Hi Andy,
Can’t wait to read the book, and I love this discussion. Nothing brilliant comes to mind. . . yet. But a couple additional thoughts, building on the crowds’ ideas.
1. I agree with Mitch Betts’ feedback regarding the double plural. It is clunky. Also, I like his subtitle suggestions. Building on these, you may want to personalize it a bit: “Your Customers” which would look like this:
“Consumer Shift: How Your Customers’ Values Will Change Over the Next Decade”
“Consumer Shift: How to Understand the Changing Consumer Landscape”
“Consumer Shift: The Internal and External Forces Transforming the Consumer Landscape”
“Consumer Shift: What Your Customers Will Value in the Decade Ahead”
“Consumer Shift: How Values Are Transforming Your Customer Relationships”
“Consumer Shift: How to Make Sense of Your Customers’ Changing Values”
2. Re; your and @Tom’s comments about being called a consumer, we see this in the nonprofit world, too. People don’t want to be thought of generically as “donors” or “contributors.” They don’t want to be called “survivors” (e.g. cancer survivor).
Again, just a couple thoughts and ideas.
Interesting point on the donors and contributors. Makes total sense. Thanks for the suggestions!
Andy,
I am really looking forward to the book! I think this book will have a lot of appeal outside the futures and academic world – so I would appeal to the “airport crowd” as well. (You know the futures crowd is already there ….)
I like Mitch’s suggestion of ” Consumer Shift: What Customers Will Value in the Decade Ahead” – it has the value perspective but get’s more at why people would want to read (and buy) the book.
Thanks! Fingers crossed on “crossing over!” And you’ll probably notice all sorts of places where you had influence!